National have slammed the door shut on the parents of already settled migrants who wish to move to NZ to complete the family unit. Minister Michael Woodhouse accuses elderly Asians of bludging off the NZ taxpayer. You won’t believe the howls of outrage from the right!
In Auckland, Christchurch and in mayoral races throughout the country Labour and Progressives had a very good day while National and its proxies must be wondering what they did wrong.
Day one of the International Days of Prayer and Action with Standing Rock. Here’s a post on NZ’s relationship with water, and whether water is a resource or a taonga.
The Chief Prison Inspector’s report on Mount Eden Corrections Facility has now been released and has presented a damning judgment on Serco’s management of the prison.
John Key is pretty good at providing media commentary on what problems New Zealand faces. But is he any good at addressing those problems?
Ad ranks post second world war according to criteria which produces some interesting result.
Don Brash and a group of other predominately privileged white males are complaining that Maori may also be receiving some privilege.
So Paula Bennett has been giving a lolly scramble to her National mates with the Rules Reduction Taskforce.
Which is fine, because the Taskforce did great work in finding out that the ‘loopy’ rule of lolly scrambles being illegal wasn’t in fact true.
The Ombudsman is to investigate John Key’s failure to disclose communications with David Farrar and Cameron Slater
It is local government election time. If you want to vote for progressive candidates these are some suggestions.
The Maori Party are threatening to pull out of their confidence & supply agreement with National. This would leave National with a Hair-thin majority in the House. The Kermadec Sanctuary, if handled with competence instead of arrogance, should have been a massive win for National.
It appears that Parliamentary Services is monitoring MPs emails. And not just for things such as spam and viruses.
Labour has released its latest UMR polling which shows a dramatically different result to that of the latest Colmar Brunton poll.
* at least according to David Seymour.
Figures provided by the Government to Labour suggest that providing accommodation for families with chronic housing needs is taking much longer than it did six months ago. But Paula Bennett has replied by suggesting that the figures do not reflect reality.
While we’re enjoying the popcorn at Williams vs Craig, there’s another enjoyable court case coming next year shortly before the election…
Reporter Eugene Bingham who broke the story on how Papakura police were doctoring crime statistics by recoding burglaries as other offences two years ago has written about how his attempts to get to the truth of the matter has effectively been thwarted by the police.
Blogger and social activist Chloe King, one of the hundreds of thousands of low waged workers in this country was devastated by John Key’s comments suggesting that she and others were lazy and had no work ethic. This is her response.
Already number 4 for housing unaffordability, we’re now number 1 for house price rises!
It may have been brief and passing but yesterday National lost control of Parliament. And it was all their own fault.
Despite the large number of people with terrible stories about homelessness to the Labour/Greens/Maori Homelessness Inquiry, this Government of Housing Inaction still thinks the problem should be ignored and the Inquiry ‘not needed’.
Nick Smith has introduced a bill into Parliament which he wants to be passed under urgency without select committee oversight. The bill takes away the right of any prior owner of land taken under the Public Works Act to have housing land offered back to them. To do this under urgency is banana republic stuff.
No denying the housing crisis now, Nick.
Rumours suggesting that Shane Jones will stand for New Zealand First in Whangarei at the next election have resurfaced.
Our National dipshit ministers have decided to start a new growth industry. They importing low-skilled to extract their savings, using them to generate artificial heat in the service economy and to slow wage growth. On the way through they’re also screwing the housing market. Our current net permanent long-term migration is completely unsustainable. Perhaps it is time to vote NZ First?
Nick Smith’s latest excuse for inaction on water quality is birds. Yes birds. You couldn’t make this shit up.
For a dose of blessed sanity, watch the (10 min) webcast by Dr Mike Joy explaining what the real problem is.
We have had years of systematic under funding of the police and front-line numbers are falling. None the less police are now expected to attend every burglary. For the sake of this exercise in public perception other areas of police wrok will suffer.
Matt McCarten is to head a new Labour party office in Auckland. The party is going to take to fight to National in the city that decides the election. Yet another bold step from Andrew Little, who is looking more and more like the next PM.
John Key has used some very dodgy figures to claim that the housing crisis was worse under Labour than it is now.
The latest Roy Morgan is out. A solid 7% drop for National.
As the average Auckland house price hits $1 Million, the Special Housing Areas fail, and Real Estate agents openly promote land banking, what does National do? Why, they give up, of course.
Illustrator and commentator Toby Morris has animated TA’s story: “What do you want most in the world,” John Campbell asks TA, who has been living in a van with her family since February. “A library.”
Great news everyone! On The Nation this morning Nick Smith committed to raising average NZ wage to $250,000!
The Spinoff: “Lose the top of your party vote in Auckland, with Labour making ground, and the picture for the general election in 2017 looks like, walks like and quacks like a crisis.”
You know National really have their finger on the pulse with their latest members bills. First was Nuk Korako showing why he’s 50 […]
